Actress and Celebrity Big Brother star Danniella Westbrook will be appearing once more in EastEnders when her character, Sam Mitchell, returns for the funeral of her mum Peggy, played by Barbara Windsor.
It will be six years since the star, whose first appearance in the Square was back in 1990, left the long-running BBC1 soap, but she is excited about her upcoming scenes. “I can’t wait to work alongside everyone again,” she said.
“Sam will only be back for a few episodes,” revealed the show’s executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins, “but these scenes are bound to go down in the soap’s history.”
Peggy’s death and funeral will be the soap’s biggest storyline of the year – seeing the return of Barbara Windsor as well as Ross Kemp as her son Grant. It’s unsurprising then that the producers wanted to see all of Peggy’s children return for what will undoubtedly be emotional scenes.
“Danniella is the final piece of the Mitchell jigsaw puzzle,” added Treadwell-Collins, “so it will be great for viewers to see Phil, Grant and Sam all back on screen.”
Barbara Windsor briefly returned to the soap in January when she told her alcoholic son her cancer had returned and she was dying. The plot prompted speculation that Danniella would return and earlier this month she confirmed on ITV’s This Morning that she was in talks with the soap's producers.
EastEnders continues tomorrow on BBC1 at 8pm
